15:[[1338596,{"by":"cherif","descendants":15,"id":1338596,"kids":[1338721,1338843,1338813,1338664,1338788,1338709],"score":5,"text":"Hey Guys,

I am stumped and need your help.

So I've been trying to find a good designer to 1) help me design a personal homepage & blog theme and 2) help us with various design projects at our startup.

Whenever I see a site/blog/app I really like I scroll to the bottom and the person/company who did the design is often listed there. I then follow the link, checkout the person's portfolio and send them a personal email. I've emailed about 60 designers so far and 100% of them are either a) busy or b) don't reply to the email.

I've also tried crowdsourcing (e.g., 99Design) and freelance (e.g., oDesk) sites but it seems to me like I am most likely to find average, cookie-cutter folks. Just my impression, let me know if you've had a different experience with these sites.

What am I doing wrong? What do I suggest I do to find a good designer? I am really not looking for anything too complicated, especially for my personal homepage & blog.

Thanks a lot!","time":1273598882,"title":"Ask HN: Can't find a designer. What am I doing wrong?","type":"story","url":""}],[1284797,{"by":"erlendm","descendants":7,"id":1284797,"kids":[1284839,1285123,1285028,1284877,1285033,1284927],"score":6,"text":"Hi, we need to convert our Photoshop design to XHTML/CSS. Any reccommendations ?","time":1271937629,"title":"Ask HN: Recommend good PSD to HTML service","type":"story","url":""}],[1243118,{"by":"frntnd","descendants":2,"id":1243118,"kids":[1243237,1243330],"score":2,"text":"I'm not very smart & quite a slow learner. After coding static HTML based sites for 3 years now i am pretty confident with my CSS abilities & would like to move ahead learning PHP MySQL.

But seems like i can't never move beyond the variables chapter in online php tutorials, a real book might help me.

Would you recommend anything from here - http://search.oreilly.com/?q=php

I'm thinking may be the Head First one has easier language for me to understand. Books from Wrox seem difficult.","time":1270502389,"title":"Ask HN: Please suggest me a PHP book","type":"story","url":""}],[1236467,{"by":"jsdalton","descendants":8,"id":1236467,"kids":[1236654,1236502,1236820,1238305,1239134,1236603,1236545],"score":6,"text":"I'm trying to hire a web designer right now, and in my ad I specified that I was looking for someone who had a strong aesthetic design sense AND who knew had to code (HTML, CSS, hopefully a bit of JS, etc.).

Most of the responses I've gotten are from designers who can mock up designs in Photoshop but can't / don't really code.

Am I being unrealistic in my quest for this person? Should I instead try to find a designer with strong visual skills and pair them up with a front-end coder who can implement their vision?

I also have to confess to a personal bias, that a designer who can't code is just a graphic designer pretending to be something they are not -- and that a true web designer who understands the medium will know how to code it up themselves. I'm not sure this bias is valid though.

I'm just curious if any of you can share your experiences with web designers in this regard or other opinions you might have on the subject.","time":1270217051,"title":"Ask HN: Web designer who codes, or designer + front-end coder?","type":"story","url":""}]]

user:	ryandavies
created:	April 2, 2010
karma:	2